Data Loss and data recovery- file recovery tool to HDD repair tools- how to prevent data loss

June 4, 2010 - PRLog -- File recovery and HDD repair tools the most flourishing filed in the modern IT business world because data loss happens every day. Data loss is inescapable and can be reported everywhere whether due to human error, software corruption, hard drive failure or other data loss causes. Data loss has serious implications for business. Data loss can lead to costly downtime for sales and marketing and reduced customer service while customer databases are restored or rebuilt. Lost financial data can lead to lost contracts and stock value, or worse. File recovery and HDD repair tools is common because 6% of all PCs will suffer an episode of data loss in any given year, 31% of PC users suffer data loss of all their files due to events beyond their control. From the statistical analysis of DataLossDB(see picture ), It is accepted that data lose prosper the whole data recovery and file recovery industry.

Picture: Number of data loss incidents
Why data loss is so common in the modern life? And how does data lose? First it should mention the growth of data storage is that the cost per megabyte has plummeted over the past twenty years, hard drive capacity was increased 200-fold in ten year (see picture).Companies are relying more and more on data in a distributed environment and “paper files” is less used than a computer. Most important files are store on a small disk, if the hard driver is corrupt; you have to resort to file recovery.  
Picture: Hard drive capacity growth of Seagate
Data loss can due to any reasons, but file Recovery engineers classify hard drive data loss in two main categories:
Logical failure - the hard drive is in working order but some files or data cannot be accessed for logical reasons such as a lost partition or accidental reformatting, the logical file recovery software can solve those problems.
Physical failure - the hard drive is not functioning. The most common causes are head crashes and motor failures so both file recovery and data recovery are needed.

To start a file recovery business, firstly should understand the reasons cause data loss. There are two types of Data Loss in data recovery.
Logical Data Loss: Hard drive that is physically functioning, recognized by the system BIOS, and where critical data is not accessible, this is likely to be experiencing a logical failure. Logical Data Loss is the most common damage in file recovery. Logical data Loss is caused due to:
Human error, including accidental deletion of files;
Virus attack;
Software malfunction;
Power surge.
Physical data Loss is a hard drive cannot accessible by software such as the system BIOS, Windows' Disk Management, or other disk utilities it can be considered as truly dead and in need of data recovery, Physical data Loss happens due to various reasons such as:
Hardware failure (electrical, mechanical component), including damage by power surge and drive failure.
Natural disasters like floods, fire, lightning.
Accidental dropping of disk to the floor also may cause hard disk getting damaged physically.
Statistical investigate from file recovery companies can give us a clear understand of data loss reasons (see picture )

Picture : Data Loss statistical analysis from file recovery companies
Statistical investigate from file recovery and data recovery services companies show that data Loss could be concluded as following reasons: Hard drive failure is the most common cause of data loss, accounting for 38 percent of data loss. Drive read instability includes occasions where media corruption or degradation is about 30%. Software corruption, which might include damages, caused by system software or other program (e.g., virus attack), accounts for 13 percent of data loss incidents. Human error accounts for 12 percent of data loss episodes. This includes the accidental deletion of data as well as incorrectly partitioning the hard drive.
In file recovery filed, there are some distinguishes on broad sense file recovery and general file recovery, as well as file recovery, data loss is also have the broad sense data loss and general data loss, broad sense data lose including stolen laptop, stolen document, web and hack(see picture )

Picture : Data loss type statistical analysis from DataLossDB

What we usually mentioned is general data loss which can find back the lost data by file recovery and data recovery.
Thus data loss is so common in daily life, which industry is the worst industry that the recoverable data loss? Data from file recovery and data recovery services companies show that customs form the Government, Healthcare and Education are the most valuable client. The Statistical picture from file recovery companies can give us a clear understand of the structure proportion (see picture )

Picture: The main industries of data loss for 2009 from Data Loss Barometer
Here need a clear mind on recoverable date loss and unrecoverable data loss. File recovery engineer point out that data loss will result in one of two outcomes: either the data loss are recoverable with the assistance of file recovery technician, or the data are permanently lost cannot find back. Each data loss incident must take into account both possibilities. The ability to recover data depends on the cause of the data loss. The permanent loss or theft of a laptop whose data have no backup will result in permanently lost data. In addition, fire or flood damage can also make the possibility of data recovery very remote. For other causes of data loss, file recovery technicians are becoming more adept at restoring inaccessible data. Taking into account all causes of data loss, evidence suggests that in 83 percent of the cases, data may be recovered.
To start a file recovery process, firstly should understand how data is stored on a hard drive. When information is written to a drive, the location of the information is stored in a file that resembles a table of contents for a book, on computers running DOS and Windows operating systems, the File Allocation Table (FAT) or the Master File Table (MFT) holds this information. When a file is deleted, the FAT or MFT table is updated to tell the computer the space on the hard drive is available, however the actual data is not deleted until it is overwritten with new data. This is why you read about computer forensic teams, the FBI, and other law enforcement being able to recover data to solve crimes or incriminate individuals. Using file recovery tools and HDD repair tools, you can restore files that were accidentally or otherwise deleted. In more severe case, services such as Drive Savers are used to recover data that has been physically or electronically destroyed.

Hard drive failure is the largest single explanation for data loss. Hard drive failure may be related to mechanical, electronic, or firmware failures. Hard disk failure occurs when a hard disk drive malfunctions and the stored information cannot be accessed with a properly configured computer. A disk failure may occur in the course of normal operation or due to an external factor such as exposure to fire or water or high magnetic waves, or suffering a sharp impact, which can lead to a head crash. Mechanical failures occur when physical components of the device itself begin to wear or malfunction. Electronic failures occur when the printed circuit board begins to produce errors. Finally, many hard drive failures are related to out-of-date, corrupt or buggy firmware. Firmware is the controlling software that is built into the hardware device itself stored on disk platters of the drive. Like most software in use today, firmware may become damaged or corrupt over time. This is a very common failure for modern drives because of the complexity of firmware design.
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SalvationDATA has been in data recovery fields for more than 10 years and has good experience and innovative data recovery solutions from logical data recovery to physical data recovery of both hard disk drives and flash drives